The Army and Navy
Although the Dutch maintained their independence in the sixteenth century
against the most formidable regular army in Europe, and also did their
fair share of fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they
have long ceased to aspire to the rank of a military Power. The separation
from Belgium in 1830-31 put an end to the Orange policy of creating a
powerful Netherland State from Lorraine to the North Sea which could hold
its own with either France or Prussia, and since that period Holland has
gradually sunk, and seemingly without discontent, into the position of a
third-rate Power. This has taken place without any apparent loss of the
old love of independence, but it has necessarily been accompanied by a
diminution not only of the military spirit, but of military efficiency and
readiness. The spectacle of immense armies of millions of men in the
neighbouring States seems to have produced a sense of helplessness among
the people of the Netherlands, and to have led them to believe that
resistance, were it needful, would be futile. The inglorious campaign of
1794, when Pichegru occupied Holland almost without a blow, serves as a
sort of object-lesson to demonstrate the hopelessness of any attempt at
resistance, instead of the creditable campaign of 1793; when the Dutch
expelled Dumouriez from their country. Curiously enough, the Transvaal War
has revived national hope and confidence by showing what a well-armed
people without military training can do when standing on the defensive.
Time is necessary to prove whether this new sentiment will remove the
fatalistic feeling of helplessness that has been creeping over Dutch
public men, and brace them to efforts worthy of their ancestry.
The sense of impotency has not been confined to the land forces alone. In
that matter it was felt that a nation of less than five millions could
not compete with those that numbered forty and fifty millions. But the
same sentiment exists also with regard to maritime power, where the
competition is not of men, but of money. The immense navies of modern
days, and the enormous cost of their maintenance and renovation, seem to
exclude small States from the rank of naval Powers. Holland, with the
finest material for manning a navy of any Continental State, can be no
exception to the general rule. Her little navy is a model of efficiency,
her small cruisers of 5000 tons are not surpassed by any of the same
size, and the _morale_ of her officers, one may not doubt, is worthy of
the service that produced not only the Ruyters and Tromps of old days,
but Suffren, our most able opponent during the long Napoleonic struggle.
None the less, the Dutch navy remains a small navy quite overshadowed by
the immense organizations of the present age, and without any possible
chance of competing with them.
This self-evident fact exercises a depressing influence on Dutch opinion,
which has latterly shown a marked desire to ally the country with some
other. An alliance with Belgium, that of the North and South
Netherlanders, the old Union of the Provinces broken in 1583 and
imperfectly restored from 1815 to 1830, would be hailed with delight. The
difficulty of attaining this consolidation of Netherland opinion and
resources, on account of pronounced religious differences, has resulted in
the formation of a considerable body of opinion favourable to an alliance
with Germany. For the moment, events in South Africa have placed the old
English party in a hopeless minority.
Although the Dutch possess in probably an unabated degree all the sturdy
characteristics that distinguished them of old, it seems as if prosperity
had somewhat blunted the edge of patriotism, at least to the extent of
rendering them unwilling to submit to the hardships of the conscription,
when fully applied to the whole people. As the consequence the Dutch do
not come under the head of an armed nation, and the war effective of their
army is less than 70,000 men.
The regulations applying to the army are based on the law of 1861, which
was modified in one important particular by an Act of 1898. The army was
to be raised partly by conscription and partly by voluntary enlistment.
The annual contingent by conscription was fixed at 11,000 men. Every man
became liable to conscription at the age of nineteen, but as the right of
purchasing exemption continued in force until the Act of 1898 referred to,
all well-to-do persons so minded escaped from the obligation of military
service. At the same time its conditions were made as light as possible.
Nominally the conscripts had to serve for five years, but in reality they
remained one year with the colours, and afterwards were called out for
only six weeks' training during each of the four subsequent years. The
regular army thus obtained mustered on a peace footing 26,000 men and 2000
officers, and on a war footing 68,000 officers and men and 108 guns,
excluding fortress artillery. Considering the interests entrusted to its
charge, the Dutch army must be pronounced the weakest of any State
possessing colonies--a position of no inconsiderable importance from the
historical and political point of view.
It will be said, no doubt, that Holland possesses other land forces
besides her regular army, and this is true, but they are by the admission
of the Dutch themselves ill organized and not up to the level of their
duties. There is the Schutterij, or National Volunteer force--perhaps
Militia would be a more correct term, because the law creating it is based
on compulsion. The law organizing the Schutterij was passed in April,
1827, by which ail males were required to serve in it between the ages of
twenty-five and thirty, and from thirty to thirty-five in the Schutterij
reserve. An active division is formed out of unmarried men and widowers
without children. This division would be mobilized immediately on the
outbreak of war, and would take its place alongside the regular army. It
probably numbers five thousand men out of the total of 45,000 active
Schutterij. The reserve Schutterij does not exceed 40,000, but behind ail
these is what is termed indifferently the Landsturm, or the _levee en
masse_. There is only one defect in this arrangement, which is that by far
the larger portion of the population has never had any military training
except that given to the Schutterij, which is practically none at all. A
_levee en masse_ in Holland would have precisely the value, and no more,
that it would have in any other non-military State which either did not
possess a regular army of adequate efficiency and strength, or which had
not passed its population through the ranks of a conscript army.
The Dutch Schutterij is ostensibly based on the model of the Swiss Rifle
Clubs, and the obligatory part of its service relates to rifle-practice at
the targets, but there the similarity ends. There is no room to question
the efficiency of the Swiss marksmen, and the tests applied are very
severe. But in Holland the practice is very different. The Schutterij
meetings are made the excuse for jollity, eating and drinking. They are
rather picnics than assemblies for the serious purpose of qualifying as
national defenders. Even in marksmanship the ranges are so short, and the
efficiency expected so meagre, that the military value of this civic force
is exceedingly dubious. It could only be compared with that of the Garde
Civique of Belgium, and with neither the Swiss Rifle Corps nor our own
Volunteers.
Curiously enough, there is, however, an offshoot of the Schutterij based
also on the old organization of an ancient guild called the
"Sharpshooters." Its members are supposed to be good shots, or at least to
take pains to become so, and they practise at something approaching long
ranges. But it is a very limited and somewhat exclusive organization based
on a considerable subscription. It is the society or club of well-to-do
persons with a bent towards rifle-practice. An application to the
Schutterij of the obligations forming part of the voluntary and
self-imposed conditions accepted by the Sharpshooters would, no doubt, add
much to its efficiency, and might in time give Holland a serviceable
auxiliary corps of riflemen.
Besides the home army, Holland possesses a very considerable colonial army
which is commonly known as the Indian contingent. This force garrisons
Java, Sumatra, and the other colonies in the East. The army of the East
Indies numbers 13,000 Europeans and 17,000 natives, principally Malays of
Java. Besides this regular garrison a Schutterij force is maintained in
Java. It consists of 4000 Europeans and 6000 natives. The Europeans are
the planters and the members of the civil service. The natives are the
retainers of some of the native princes, and the overseers and more
responsible men employed on the European plantations. The total garrison
of the Dutch East Indies is consequently a very considerable one, viewed
by the light of its duties, but allowance has to be made for the
interminable war in Atchin, which keeps several thousand men permanently
engaged, and never seems nearer an ending.
The Dutch authorities find great difficulty in recruiting their army for
the East Indies, and with the growth of prosperity this difficulty
increases. Indeed, the garrison could not be maintained at its present
high strength but for the numerous volunteers who come forward for this
well-paid service from Germany and Belgium. At one time these outside
recruits became so numerous owing to the tempting offers made to them by
the Dutch authorities that the two Governments interested presented formal
protests against their proceedings. Germany has always been very sore on
the subject of losing any of her soldiers, and Belgium has much need of
all the men likely to serve abroad in the Congo State. There are still
foreigners of German and Belgian race in the Dutch Indian army, but any
design of turning it into a Foreign Legion on the same model as that of
the force which has served France so well in Algeria and her colonies has
fallen through.
The only active service or practical experience of war which the Dutch
army has had since the end of the struggle with Belgium has been in the
East Indies. The Lombock expedition of 1894 is still remembered for its
losses and disasters, but on that occasion the Dutch displayed a fine
spirit of fortitude under a reverse, and ended the campaign by bringing
the hostile Sultan to reason. The long struggle with the Atchinese has
been marked by heroism on both sides, and is evidence that the Dutch have
not lost their old tenacity. At the same time the Government finds
considerable difficulty in obtaining the requisite number of voluntary
exiles to preserve its possessions in the Eastern Archipelago, and it may
find itself obliged to reduce the effective strength of its garrison.
Moreover, the hygienic conditions are still extremely unfavourable, and
the rate of mortality among Europeans in Java and the Celebes is
particularly high. It may be no longer true, as was said with perhaps
some exaggeration in the time of Marshal Daendels at the beginning of
last century, that the European Dutch garrisons die out every three
years, but the death-rate is certainly high, and a considerable part of
the garrison returns invalided by fever a very few months after its
arrival in the East. At present the Dutch Indies are absolutely safe
because England does not covet them, and would never dream of molesting
the Dutch in them provided she herself remains unmolested. But should
international competitions break out in that quarter of the world Holland
might experience some difficulty in maintaining her garrison at an
adequate strength for the proper discharge of her international duties,
but this contingency is not likely to present itself for another twenty
or thirty years.
The troops of the regular Dutch army will compare favourably with any of
their neighbours. They are not as stiff on parade as the Germans, and they
are more solid than the French. Their physique is good, although, owing to
the practice of purchasing a substitute, which has too lately ceased to
allow of the change to come into full effect, the infantry contains an
abnormal number of short men, which gives a misleading idea of the average
height of the race. The minimum height of the infantry soldier is 5 ft.
1½ ins., which is very low for a people whose general stature is quite
on a level with our own. There is certainly one point in which the Dutch
soldiers strike the observer as being different from their neighbours.
They seem light-hearted and jovial, not at all oppressed by the severe
claims of discipline, and at the same time quite free from the slouch that
gives the Belgian linesman a non-military appearance.
The strength of the Dutch army lies undoubtedly in its corps of officers,
a body of specially qualified men fitted to discharge the duties that
devolve on the leaders of any army. The majority of these pass through the
Royal Military Academy, an institution from which we might borrow some
features with advantage. Candidates are admitted between the ages of
fifteen and eighteen, and undergo a course of four years before they are
eligible for a commission. As the charges at the Academy are limited to
_£22 10s_. a year, the expense of becoming an officer forms no prohibitive
barrier, and in a course of training spread over four years the cadet can
be turned into a fully qualified officer before he is entrusted with the
discharge of practical duties. Moreover, his training does not stop with
his leaving the Academy. It is supposed to be necessary to complete it by
a further course in camps of instruction, and subsequently by what are
called State missions in the temporary service of other armies. This
practice is fairly general on the Continent, although it is never resorted
to by the British, who are less acquainted with the organization of
Continental armies than is the case with even third or fourth-rate States.
The headquarters of the Dutch Engineers are at Utrecht, of the Artillery
at Zwolle, of the Infantry at The Hague, and of the Cavalry at Breda.
Utrecht is the most important of these military stations, because the
Engineers are the most important branch of the army, and also because it
is the centre of the canal and dyke System of Holland. The school or
college of the State Civil Engineers, to whom is entrusted the care of the
dykes, is at Utrecht. They are known as Waterstaat, and Utrecht may be
held to supplement and complete the machinery existing at the capital,
Amsterdam, for flooding the country. In theory and on paper, the defence
of Holland is based on the assumption that in the event of invasion the
country surrounding Amsterdam to as far as Utrecht on one side and Leyden
on the other would be flooded. There are many who doubt whether the
resolution to sanction the enormous attendant damage would be displayed.
It is said that the national spirit does not beat so high as when the
youthful William resorted to that measure in 1672 to baffle the French
monarch, and then prepared his fleet, in the event of its failure, to
convey the relics of Dutch greatness and the fortunes of Orange to a new
home and country beyond the seas. On that occasion the waters did their
work thoroughly well. But it is said that they might not accomplish what
was expected of them on the next occasion, while the damage inflicted
would remain. Nothing can solve this question save the practical test, but
there is no reason to believe that at heart the Dutch race of to-day is
less patriotic or resolute than formerly.
At the same time a very important change has to be noted in the views of
Dutch strategists. Formerly the whole system of national defence centred
in Amsterdam, and it must be added that the dykes have been mainly
constructed with the idea of flooding the country round it. This was the
old plan, sanctioned by antiquity and custom, of defending the capital at
all costs, and making it the final refuge of the race. But latterly the
opinion has been spreading among military men that Rotterdam would make a
far better place of final stand than Amsterdam, because, the forts of the
Texel once forced, the capital might be menaced by a naval attack from the
Zuyder Zee or by the Northern Canal. In old days Amsterdam was safe from
any naval descent, but the introduction of steam has laid it open to the
attack at least of torpedo flotillas. The entrance to the Meuse, it is
represented, could be made impregnable with little difficulty, and the
approaches to Rotterdam from the land side are far more dependent on the
proper restraining of the waters within their artificial or natural
channels than those to Amsterdam. There is another argument in support of
Rotterdam. It would be easier for Holland's allies to send aid there than
to Amsterdam, while a strong position at Rotterdam would senously menace
any hostile army at Utrecht, and contribute materially to the defence of
Amsterdam as well. But the Dutch are a slow people to move. Amsterdam is
supposed to be ready to stand a siege at any time, whereas Rotterdam's
defences are mainly on paper. The garrison of Rotterdam is only a few
hundred men, and to convert it into a fortified position would, no doubt,
entail the outlay of a good many million florins. Still, the conviction is
spreading that Rotterdam has supplanted Amsterdam as the real centre of
Dutch prosperity and national life.
The Schutterij is, singularly enough, not popular. The reason for this is
not very clear, as the duties are quite nominal, and in no material
clegree interfere with civil employment. The distaste to any form of
military service is tolerably general, and the advanced Radical party has
adopted as one of its cries, "Nobody wishes to be a soldier." Probability
points, however, not to the abolition of the Schutterij, but to its being
made more efficient, and consequently the conditions of service in it must
become more rigorous. There is one portion of the duties of the Schutterij
which is far from unpopular with the men of the force. When a householder
neglects to pay his taxes one or more militiamen are quartered on him, and
he is obliged to supply his guests not merely with good food and lodging,
but also with abundant supplies of tobacco and gin. Apart from such
incidents, which one may not doubt from the nature of the penalty are
exceedingly rare, the Schutterij seems to have rather a dull and
monotonous time of it.
There is one fact about the Dutch army that deserves mention. It is
extremely well behaved, and the men give their officers very little
trouble. The discipline is lighter than in most armies. There is an
unusually kindly feeling between officers and men for a Continental force,
and at the same time the public and the military are on excellent terms
with each other. This is, no doubt, due to the very short period served
with the colours, and to the fact that the last four years, with the
exception of six weeks annually in a camp or fortress, are passed in civil
life at home.
The Dutch navy, although small in comparison with its past achievements
and with its present competitors, is admitted to be well organized,
efficient in its condition, and manned by a fine _personnel_. It is
generally said, perhaps unjustly, that the pick of the manhood of Holland
joins the navy in preference to the army. One fact shows that there is no
difficulty in obtaining the required number of recruits to man the fleet,
for while the nominal law is that of conscription for the navy as well as
for the army, all the necessary contingent is obtained by voluntary
enlistment. No doubt the large fishing and boating classes provide
excellent material, and a comparatively short spell of service on board a
man-of-war offers an agreeable break in their lives. The Dutch being a
nautical race by tradition as well as by the daily work of a large portion
of them, there is nothing uncongenial in a naval career. No difficulty is
experienced in obtaining the services of the seven thousand seamen and two
thousand five hundred marine infantry who form the permanent staff of the
Dutch navy, and if the country's finances enabled it to build more ships,
there would be no serious difficulty in providing the required number of
men to furnish their crews.
In 1897 some steps were taken in this direction, and a credit of five
millions sterling for a ship-building programme was voted. Its operations
have not yet been brought to a conclusion, but a torpedo fleet has been
created for the defence of the Zuyder Zee, supplementing the defences at
Helder and the Texel. Something has also been done in the same direction
for the defence of Batavia and the ports of Java. The Dutch navy might be
correctly described as a good little one, quite equal to the everyday work
required of it, but not of the size or standard to play an ambitious
_rôle_. We should not, however, overlook the fact that its addition to the
navy of another Power would be as important an augmentation of strength as
was the case when Pichegru added the Dutch fleet to that of France by
capturing it with cavalry and horse artillery while ice-bound in the
Zuyder Zee. Nor can we always count on a Duncan to end the story as at
Camperdown.
The impression left on an observer of the military and naval classes in
Holland is that they are not animated by a very strong martial spirit.
Clothed in a military costume, they are still essentially men of peace,
who would be sorry to commit an act of violence or do an injury to any
one. The officers as a class are devoted to the technical part of their
work, and are thoroughly well posted in the science of war. But whether it
is due to the long peace, to the spread of prosperity among all classes of
the community, or to the lymphatic character of the race, it is not easy
to persuade one's self that the Dutch army, taken as a whole, is a
formidable instrument of war.
This feeling must be corrected by a study of history, and by recognizing
that there are no symptoms of deterioration in the sturdy qualities of the
Dutch people. Physically and morally the Netherlanders of to-day are the
equals of their forefathers, but the conditions of their national life,
the fortunate circumstances that have so long made them unacquainted with
the terrible ordeals of war, have diverted their thoughts from a bellicose
policy, and have confirmed them in their peaceful leanings. How far these
tendencies have diminished their fighting-power, and rendered them unequal
to accept or bear the sacrifices that would be entailed by any strenuous
defence of their country against serious invasion by a Great Power, must
remain a matter of opinion. Perhaps their organization has become somewhat
rusty. Reforms are admitted to be necessary. The annual contingent is
altogether too small for the needs of the age; a great and efficient
national reserve should be created; and in good time the army ought to be
raised to the numbers that would enable it to man and hold the numerous
and excellent forts which have been constructed at all vital points. The
Dutch plans of defence are excellent, but to carry them all out a very
considerable army would be necessary, and at the present moment Holland
possesses only the skeleton of an army.
Leaving the question of numbers and military organization aside, only
praise can be given to the Dutch soldier individually. He is clean, civil,
good-tempered, and with a far closer resemblance to Englishmen in what we
regard as essentials than any other Continental. The officers are in the
truest sense gentlemen free from swagger, and not over-bearing towards
their men and their civilian compatriots. They represent a genuine type of
manhood, free from artificiality or falsehood. One feels instinctively
that they say what they think, and that they will do rather more instead
of less than they promise.